China bans smoking at Olympics

Forbidden ciggie: China is home to one-third of all the world's smokers

By Richard Spencer in Beijing

12:01AM BST 31 May 2007

China will risk the wrath of the country's 350 million smokers today by declaring the site of the Beijing Olympics a smoke-free zone.

Anywhere else the decision would hardly raise an eyebrow, but in China - home to a third of the world's smokers and its largest tobacco industry - the decision has been controversial and subject to unusually public debate. The World Health Organisation estimates that a million Chinese die every year from smoking-related illnesses.

Yesterday officials confirmed that a ban would be announced today to mark World No Smoking Day.

"It will be applied in all Olympic venues and restaurants," said Zhang Jianshu, a city spokesman.

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A sign of the passions the issue can raise has already been seen at the stadiums for next year's games. Earlier this month, an attempt by security guards to stop construction workers taking a cigarette break in a no smoking zone degenerated into a drunken brawl, with several workers injured.

The tobacco industry has also fought back. Zhang Baozhen, an industry official who is also a member of the National People's Congress, the parliament, has said that a ban could cause "social instability" - the Chinese leadership's greatest fear.